No Necromancer for Diablo 3

The Barbarian is the only returning class in Diablo 3, meaning the Necromancer will be curiously absent.

Blizzard has confirmed that there will be no returning player classes in the upcoming Diablo 3, with the exception of the Barbarian class. In other words: No Necromancer.

Speaking to Kotaku at the Leipzig Games Convention, Diablo 3's lead designer Jay Wilson said that it was a deliberate decision not to include the popular Necromancer class because he frankly didn't need improving.

"The Necromancer was simply a victim of his own success," said Wilson, "He was just too well crafted as a character."

Instead, the Barbarian will be reintroduced as Wilson believes there is room for improvement in his character design. The Necromancer meanwhile will be completely absent, though Blizzard is including the kind-of-similar Witch Doctor class.

Blizzard still has three remaining player classes to unveil, but isn't giving away any hints just yet and will confirm only that the Barbarian is the only character from an existing game.

On the one hand, we can see Blizzard's decision to focus on not fixing what wasn't broken as a good thing. On the other hand though, it does seem a bit foolish to go against the wishes of the fan community and neglect to include one of the games most popular assets.

Blizzard has also drawn fire from fans recently over the art direction of the game, which is very colourful, light and bloom-ful - a stark contrast to the look of the older games in the series.

Are you looking forward to Diablo 3 or have these changes soured your taste for it? Let us know what you think in the forums.

they'll bring them back but with new identities I guess. like, the Pally will be a knight, and the sorceress will be called a mage. archers might be elves, that sort of thing. They're basically doing a total character redesign i imagine. Mostly cool because we'll get a new twist on the game, but it's going to upset ALOT of people

aww dammit. the necro was always my fav, even when he was under powered. my first character way back in 2000 was a necro and didn't even try out the specialty classes till last year (ie. spearazons, boners, hammerdins, etc). I did very much like my zoo keeper though and back before the skill synergies having 30-odd skeletons running around on screen was a hoot (or the hacked items with 35 fire golems burning their way through everything)

perhaps the necro was too dark for the 'watercolours and kittens' art style.

No problem here with the previous classes returning. It's more exciting to have new classes. The Witch Doctor seems pretty much a knock-off of the Necro to me. As someone else already said there are only so many variations-on-a-theme they can do. The "new" classes have to have the basic. Ranged class, heal/aura class, mage at lease in some form.

I got a zookeeper right now, and a MF blizzard sorc I'm leveling. It will be nice to get some fresh characters and some new builds. I think they also said they are trying to make the game less of a 1 skill wonder. Some builds literally only used 1 skill especially when synergies came out.

and +1 for expansion packs comment, I think they're leaving em all out so they can reintroduce them in an expansion pack more $$

Nobody else realized that the necro was gone as soon as they showed the gameplay trailer? The Witch Doctor was casting the same spells as the necro, and had a bunch of minions, and a new version of Bone Wall. He also carries a dagger, much like necromancers are 'supposed to'.

I only played Paladins or Necromancers back in D2.. Hammerdins required equipment that I never had, so I was having fun with my Zealots. :-D

Also, yeah. A necromancer in a party with a few Paladins was unstoppable for Hell runs.. Fanatacism/Vigor/Concentration/etc auras made them pretty immortal.

Originally Posted by crompers...Its a good thing to be adding new characters tho, i want diablo 3 not diablo 2.5

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwellerNo problem here with the previous classes returning. It's more exciting to have new classes...

My thoughts exactly. The classes in D2 weren't the same as the classes in the original Diablo, and I see no reason for the classes to be carried over this time. Sure, there'll be the same basic types of class; you'll have an archer, a melee warrior, a magician, a summoner, and probably a few others, but there's no reason for them to be identical to the D2 characters.

Wouldn't you rather spend time learning the subtleties of a new game, rather than playing a shiny-graphics expansion pack to Diablo 2?